When to Comply

• Submissions are due by May 1st each year. You will need to follow the rest of the steps 1-6 to complete the submission.
• If you have edits to buildings on file or if your building falls under one of the criteria for exemption please go to Requests for Changes/Exemptions

Information collected should be from the previous calendar year, from January 1st through December 31st.  Every Single Day needs to be accounted for in this range or your submission will have an error and not be considered compliant.  If this is your first-time benchmarking, you will likely need 13 billing cycles to get the entire year accounted for.

You will need to gather the following:

• Energy (Gas, Electric and other utilities may apply too) and Water Information (see table below)
• Building Use Type, Square Footage, Year Built.
• Building operations data that varies based on the building use type.

Utility Contact Information

***If you are not in a multi-tenanted situation or if you have access to the bills of all the tenants, this section does not apply to you. 

Evergy

If there are multiple tenants in a building, Evergy offers whole building aggregated data through their Building Energy Aggregation Tool (BEAT) program.

• BEAT Website - there are three options depending on the number of tenants.
• You will need to fill out the following:
  • Account Aggregation Request Form
  • Account Holder Release Form - if four or fewer tenants
  • BEAT Account Spreadsheet
    You will need to include Benchmarking ID, addresses and units. Other information is useful if available but it can be submitted without.

• Email the information or questions to BEAT@evergy.com. It will typically take 3-5 business days but may take longer depending on customer volume.
• Once Evergy receives all of the completed and signed documentation listed above, they will process your request.

 Spire Energy

While needed in less situations, SPIRE offers aggregated usage data. This can be obtained by filling out their Benchmarking Request Form and sending the completed form to EnergyEfficiency@spireenergy.com.

All information must be entered into Energy Star Portfolio Manager

After going to the page determine if you already have an account, the City does not provide the account.

If you do not already have an account, you will need to create one. Follow the steps below to create a new account:

1. Login into Energy Star Portfolio Manager and click on Create a New Account. 
2.  Fill out all the information requested.

• Usernames must be unique across the entire system. 
• Passwords must have a capital letter, lowercase letter, number and special character (such as !,&,$,etc.)
• We recommend using conventional EPA units.  After all information is entered, click I'm not a Robot and then Create My Account.

3. You will receive an email asking to confirm you account. If you do not receive it in 5 minutes, check your spam folder.

Once you have created an account, before you add any bills you will first need to create a property.

 Follow the steps below to create a property in Portfolio Manager:

1. Make sure you are logged in to Energy Star Portfolio Manager.
2. You will be on the Home Page. you can back to this page from anywhere in the system by clicking on the Energy Star Logo at the top left corner. 
3. Click the Add a Property Button on the top left side. 
4. Select your property type, number of buildings, then mark your building as existing and click Get Started!  
5. Enter in the required property information and click Continue.  
6. Fill in property use details1 and click Add Property.  

The steps above have saved your property and taken you to the building view. Step 4b will start on the home page so please click on the Energy Star logo at the top to go back to the Home page.

Now that we have the building added, we can see it on the home page dashboard.

Starting from the home page, we will create the meters. Most buildings will need to create Energy and Water Meters.

Please select your Building Name in the dashboard on the bottom-right.

Add Energy Meter Steps:

1. Select the Energy tab.  
2. Click on any area that says Add a Meter.  
3. Select your Meter Types and click Get Started! Most Electric meters should be labeled as purchased from the grid.  
4. Enter the necessary information, then click Create Meters.  
   The date the meter became active should match the start date of the first bill you enter otherwise it will generate an error.  
5. Select Continue for now, we will add the bills in on Step 4c.  
6. Select All Boxes click that it accounts for total energy consumption and click Apply Selection.

Add Water Meter Steps:

1. Select the Water tab.  
2. Select one of the areas that has Add a Water Meter.  
3. Select the water meter. Most often it will be Municipally Supplied Potable Water. Then click Get Started!  
4. Select and enter the necessary information and click Create Meters.  
5. Select Continue.  
6. Select the boxes and click Apply Selections.  

In the last set of instructions, we opted not to add the bills.

If you are an existing user complying for the second, third or so forth time this is the step that you will start with.

Please follow the steps to add bills starting from the Home menu:

1. Select your Building Name in the dashboard on the bottom-right.  
2. Select the Energy Tab.  
3. Select one of the meter names in the table, these reflect the meters you have already created.  
4. Add in your bills and click Save Bills. You will need to click Add Another Entry to add each bill. Below the image there will be numbers that correspond to the image to help you navigate this page.  
   1. This drop-down box will allow you to switch between meters.
   2. This allows you to change the meter name, type, date it became active and more. It will also let you delete the meter.
   3. The display year filters out entries that are not in the year shown. This defaults to the most recent year with meter entries.
   4. Click this to add an entry. For the ordinance, you need the start date, end date and usage only.
   5. Click Add Another Entry to add another bill.
   6. Save Bills will save your bill information that you just entered. After clicking this you will always be able to see what you entered when coming back to this page.

We will need to make sure that what is entered is correct. There is an error checker that will help us make sure everything is in correctly.

Steps to run error checker starting from Home:

1. Select your Building from the dashboard.  
2. Select the Check for Possible Errors button on the lower right-hand side in the summary tab.  
3. Select Year Ending December 31st and the Year you are entering data for and then click Run Checker.  

If numbers have populated in the top right that is generally a good sign. If you see NA there is almost definitely something wrong that needs to be addressed.

Now that everything is accurate, it will need to be sent to the City. We will begin by using the external link below to start the process. Please follow the steps below to send the completed and accurate information:

1. Click This Link to Submit Data and it will take you to a new screen in Portfolio Manager (you may be prompted to login after clicking this). 

2. At the bottom of this form, the Timeframe will already be set and you will need to select your property(s) and click Generate Response Preview.   

3. This should take you to the Reporting Tab in Portfolio manager (tabs will show MyPortfolio-Sharing-Reporting-Recognition).

4. Under this tab, there will be a template that says Data Request YYYY Reporting Template for the most current year.  You will need to wait until the Status field says Response Preview Generated. Then, click on the drop-down box to the right, "I want to..." and select Send Response.  

5. You may come across a page that alerts you of any errors that may be present. Please fix all applicable errors and then proceed to follow steps 1-4 again.
   
   If this page does not come up, then everything is good and accurate and you should proceed to the next step.  

6. Lastly, the next page will have you E-sign. Click the I Hereby Certify box, Enter Username and Password.  At this point there should be a green check next to the password box.  Click Send Data.    

7. An email should be sent to you by Energy Star Portfolio Manager to confirm your submittal.

1. Data Not Sent to the City.

   Data entered into Portfolio Manager must also be sent to the City. Step 6 provides instructions and the link to complete this.

2. There Is Not a Full Calendar Year of Data.

   Every single day in the specified year must be accounted for.  Every single day between January 1st through December 31st must be included otherwise we receive it as an error.  Most bills start mid-month, so your first bill will probably start in December of the previous year BUT you might have already entered it last year.

3. Energy Meter has Gaps or Overlaps.

   Bills can end and start on the same day, but if there is more than 1 day overlap or gap, the system will generate it as an error.  Run the Data Quality Checker tool to find and fix this issues, see Step 5.

4. Date Meter Became Active.

   The Date Meter Became Active is the date you started using the meter, but it's best to enter the date of the first bill you have. If the "Date Meter Became Active" does not match your first Bill Date, you will get a warning message.

   If you want to enter the real date that the meter came online, and you don't have bills going back that far, you can ignore the warning message. It won't affect your metrics at all.

   You can edit the Date Meter Became Active on the Manage Bills page, under "Basic Meter Information"

5. No Meters Selected for Performance Metrics.

   By default meters you create will not be selected as part of the building use metrics. You will need to select the meters that will be included and click that the meters account for the total energy consumption of the building.

6. New/Inactive Meters Labeled Improperly.

   While less common than the other issues, it is worth mentioning. If your building gets new meters but there is no lapse in service dates, you can continue using the same meter accounts in Portfolio Manager. The issue occurs when new meters are created. New and disabled meters need to be input correctly.
   
   Old meters must be marked as inactive with an inactive date the same as the end date of the last bill entered. The new meter must have an active date that is the start date of the first bill entered.  There should also be no gap between the active and inactive dates of the old and new meters.

7.  Building ID is not entered.

   Please enter your Kansas City Building ID for each building you own or manage.  On the Details tab for the building, under the Unique Identifiers (IDs) box, click on Edit.  A Standard IDs window will open and click the dropdown arrow and select Kansas City Building Reporting ID and then enter your Building ID that was provided to you.  The format for the ID is 2 numbers - 2 letters - 5 numbers.